Community Ethics

We talk of intentional communities but it is not enough to be intentional. One must have ethics. It is said that permaculture Ethics include:

Care for the Earth

Care for People

Return the Surplus

Ethics are "rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad."

Since permaculture is dealing with Nature the ethics must be natural. From the begining God commanded man to tend to the weightier matters of Nature.

"And the LORD God took the man,
and put him into the garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it." Genesis 2:15

Communities must have ethics as well and many ancient cultures have summarized those rules. The ancient Egyptians had a list of rules which expressed their ethics or law call Maat. The Ten Commandments of Israel were just an abbreviated form of these rules and are still seen over the supreme court of nations as basic and fundamental yet not always applied equally in all things.

While the Law of the Maat was exemplified in 42 Negative Confessions Maat was the spirit in which justice was applied rather than the detailed legalistic exposition of rules. The same is true of the Mosaic Law.

If the law is Spirit and there is a Law of Nature then nature conforms to the law. Nature is the manifestation of the God of Nature and exemplifies the righteousness of nature and of God, defining God as the Creator of Nature.

So to establish the ethics of a PermaComunity we may say in the Spirit of the law of Nature say:

Seek Righteousness

Cultivate a love for the People

Share the Surplus

Nature is a system of systems. While the earth is composed of elements like atoms particles and molecules their arrangements in ecosystems forms units within Nature. Every creature is a unite composed of systems but even units may gather and form systems we call communities. see Permaculture

Intentional Communities should consider Permaculture if they are to form PermaCommunities.

While individuals are the primary unit of a community the community itself is an entity.

The individual does not reproduce without an organic union for the purpose of reproduction. Nature draws individuals together but with that purpose. No purpose is truly isolated in nature so the draw without reproduction frustrates the whole of nature.

The individual has a body with different organs that have a purpose or purposes. The primary organ of society is the family which has multiple purposes and functions.

The elements of a community are the people and their natural needs which includes "relationship" within each organic unit (family) and the other elements of community and their natural needs of those units.

Mankind is gregarious.

Natural systems share their byproducts with other systems that coexist with them. The elements of the herd need the herd and while they move with a self interest they cling to the whole herd and product all elements of the heard as if protecting themselves.

This is because of "relationship" and mutual identity and natural empathy. Isolating elements of society while important to personal identity can be counter effective to mutual identity.

Gathering together and sharing common difficulties and trial creates relationships that allow life to be shared naturally. Without proper sharing in good or bad times their is no balance in the natural cohesion of a community.

Principles and Function of Permaculture can give us a spiritual overview of a PermaCommunity for all communities are a apart of nature.

• Observation of the rhythms and reason for the driving forces of each unit of the community is essential. To observe you must gather and communicate, share and record within the community as sentient beings with a long term mission.
• Connect the organs/Families in small intimate congregations and connect those congregations within the layers of relations common with society through share their surplus and their sacrifice through charity, hope and also organically through marriage overlapping elements/entities which establishing balance diverse blood relationships of multiple families and inheritance.
• Allow the natural storing of energy and materials within the entities and structural elements of the community including the individuals, families, extended families, their institutions as well as the congregations and congregations of congregations. Every level of society should store energy/wealth within the living control of every entity. Wealth and energy must flow by free choice. The "flow of resources" by love and free choice is essential to build a capacity for life and liberty.
• Each entity has function but in its relationships it may provide secondary functions to enhance other elements of the whole system of society. Location, love, and liberty in a system establishes symbiotic relations and functions stabilizing the flow and storage of wealth.
• Separate entities function as multiple parts of a whole system to create synergies. Some redundancy not only protects against failure but may add both competition and variety which promotes innovation and growth. Without variety stagnation may produce both imbalanced and vulnerability to insidious disease.
• Work is shared by complimentary systems which require less or no external management with the flow of charity. Nature is always looking for the easiest way to accomplishes the most change but with man a sense of righteousness, mercy and love produce the service required with in all societies, but freely through choice.
• Self manageable systems have beginnings and ends with the individuals at first and are eventually strong together within larger systems because of common practices, and purposes.

Principles for Living Systems

• Optimize the intersection points of society. Those contact points within the society should maintain a record of those within its cell group (the congregation) and create relationship of communications, charity, service, trust with the ministers of other cell groups within the whole of community as brothers.
• Collaborate systems in order to facilitate the flow of charity, the promotion of moral ethics, the permanence of the family unit. the protection of what is proper and property, the administration of justice and mercy, communication within the living system of needed information, the distribution of the freewill flow of service...
• Renewable through being fruitful as individuals and as congregations in free assembly.

Be Attitudes

• There are no problems only challenges and opportunities. Strive, persevere and bless those who do also.
• Yield freely all that you have to sustain others as much as yourselves passing it on to other entities with true needs in a way of strengthening them. Share with others within your congregations but equally with others...
• You are the giver of life and the hand of the creator.
• There are no mistakes if we learn their lessons. He who does nothing makes only one mistake.

==Footnotes==